TOKYO — Amid the recent series of drinking scandals involving pilots, about 3,800 cases of Japan Airlines Co. (JAL)’s alcohol test records were found missing among roughly 220,000 inspection results, officials of the airline have revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun.

The data was recorded using a new type of alcohol detecting device that JAL introduced in August 2017. The company claims it “has not confirmed any cases of deliberate cheating to pass inspections.” Meanwhile, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) is conducting a further investigation of JAL’s poor alcohol test conditions and mulling over imposing an administrative penalty on the company.

According to JAL, its pilots test their alcohol levels do not exceed the company’s standard limit of 0.1 milligrams per liter of exhaled breath by blowing into breathalyzers. However, a 42-year-old former co-pilot was arrested in London after he was found to have high alcohol levels in his body before a London-Tokyo flight in October.

In response, the MLIT conducted an on-site inspection of JAL’s offices, including one at Haneda Airport, for three days from Nov. 27. Although data from the new devices were meant to be recorded online, some items were found missing by MLIT officials during their inspection.

JAL’s interviews with pilots revealed that the major causes for such failures were typographical errors when entering employee numbers and system failures that prevented the start of alcohol tests.

Some of the approximately 3,800 cases of missing data included test results that could not be recorded online. When the new devices were introduced, JAL officials failed to complete installations